Data processing apparatus



s. I UBKIN ETAL 3,229,257

DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS Filed Oct. 1'?. 1960 18 Sheets-Sheet l Jan. 11, 1966 SELECTOR V BUFFER REGISTER ANO SoR-rms MAcHlNE Jan. l1, 1966 S. LU BKIN ETAL DATA PROCESS ING APPARATUS Filed Oct. 1'7. 1960 18 Sheets-Sheet 2 F!G.2A FIGEB F|G.2C

G1 G4 B1 F1 F3 B4 G2 a2 O C FIAI o GIA: BIAI G3 B3 F2j \F4 GATE BUFFER FLIPFL0P R620 FGED FIG.2F

P2 T2 RI I O D1 j); D2 TI Le o-- R1A1 DW g-o Q TIM Pri P3 :T3 PULSE AMPLIFIER DELAIl LINE TOGGLE FLOR F|G.2G FlG.2I FIG.2J

W2 R2 W1 R1 F\O @L W15' OB- RIF 7'* NGN A2 W3 A1 V WRITE AMPLIFIER READ AMPLIFIER AcTUAToR FIG.2H

. BIZ O q w /T w1 FIZ O2 W2 o I- DTZ D22 I P22-G B22 -o l CO INVENTURS v DETAIL OF WRITE AMPLIFIER 5am-1e l-Ubkf! By Morton Mondschtem George A. Wulflng AT TORNEY Jan. 11, 1966 s. LUBKIN ETAL DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed Oct. l?. 1960 UZIzOUZ.

Jan. l1, 1966 s. LuBKlN ETAL DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet 4.

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FIG 5 INCOMING S. LUBKIN ETAL DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet 5 JNVENToRs Samuel Lubkin Morron Mondschein George A. Wulfng 'ATTORNEY Jan. 11, 1966 s. LUBKIN ETAI.

DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet 6 Filed Oct. 17. 1960 ATTORNEY Jan. l1, 1966 s. LUBKIN ETAL DATA PROCESSING AFPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet 7 Filed OCT.. 17. 1960 Jan. 11, 1966 s. I UBKIN ETAL 3,229,257

DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS Filed om. 17. 1960 1e sheets-sheet e ATTO NEY ng o U M U N nV .mmm sMmH Ol R S U q k h; OuR .Wa uw@ @Av1 EL W m ...uw OL 1 a n rk bmw 0G M o u N U 0|. Y mW/m. m3 PE ma um@ ma I IB o l ma@ E Uu OU .MU NU h Oil m um; ma@ ma NQ mm 0 1 H Oi ma@ m: .mm ou mu mu Ol is l Si E .im IAII Ol. InmTl-IIOMI. Il .DKPD o PTE @555mm Fiom mzmbzoo O m mJU\ GI Jan. 11, 1966 s. LUBKIN ETAI.

DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet 9 Filed Oct. 17. 1960 mm2 u o George A.Wu|fing Src.

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E mm@ .m-O m Alm@ N m E :OIL um Oli. l mmh. mmm Fm mmol. |22, mm@ mo m m5 ms mmm mm m2, m mm :Ss Io n lum mmm mvo mem mvo IUD -o m UE f Jan. l1, 1966 Filed Oct. 17. 1960 FIGO S. LUBKIN ETAL DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet 10 wczl INPUT CONTROL K Samuel Lubkin Morton Mondschein BY George A.Wulfing ATTORNEY Jan. 11, 1966 s.1 uBK|N ETAL DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet l l Filed Oct. 17. 1960 18 Sheets-Sheet 12 Filed Oct. 17. 1960 HPO HOPUmJmw OmO ZOmE/.EOU

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s. LUBKIN ETAL DATA PROCESSING FLB -OLB APPARATUS 1g Sheets-Sheet 14.

George A Wufing AT TORNEY s. LUBKIN ETAL 3,229,257

DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 1960 18 Sheets-Sheet l5 e e e e I I s; e mi u. LL- b.) LIU L|J Ld INVENToRs Samuel Lubknp Marion Mondschem George A. Wulfing 9c W ATTORNEY www@ www@ m56 Om Um mm Um 5m wml 11 mmomm1 HQI ff MENU EN@ @to W m90 ummmom, 1/ Il: mi www mmom- Q1 HI m-I 4I memo momo m mi@ muovi Il mme 13m @E um@ /Jm 0,1 u: 5m Saul 'l wm Bm v 1m @E I w8 ou www mmm Em B- www omowl ,fmm mm@ B www .5o mmm 4, JU Um- .O IFN Hm AVIH Il. mmm mm@ n UmW OU mmmi@ oVl Il. n@ m5 olmmn. @l mmc blmwm d@ e 'E 1LT z. wml /Jo W w w mmm u: ovl m mm m m mm@ wm mm m3 ,De :um is u ME z m wmp um@ Em is Jan. 1l, 1966 Filed Oct. 17.

Jan. Il, 1966 s. LUBKIN ErAl. 3,229,257

mn rnocnssxua Prunus Filed Oct. l?. 1960 18 Sheets-Shut 16 MB Tseu Me Mea uA MB EA ue Puffo 92u FPUB fo Q-UA -o-ue cl2 M85- TmM TG2 ugh-7 1Nv-ro1e.s M88: Samuel Lublur) :A ,y Marton Mondscheln George A. Wulfing ATTO NEY Jam 11, 1966 s. LUBKIN ETAL DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS 18 Sheets-Sheet l? Filed Oct. 17, 1960 Jan. 11, 1966 s. LUBKIN ETAL 3,229,257

DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS Filed Oct. 17. 1960 18 Sheets-Sheet 18 RECIRCULATKNG LOOP WD WD4 TIMER W wea P12w o col -OWBB maw -o TIMER w l RECIRCULATING Loop WB C0 -OWBA Pmw o co' -OWBS P15w o Bawf coI maw WBS f o PSW l -o co Bzw WB1\ PWWOWW UC O 1% 2Q 3g 4:.5 5? o Paw DSW 63* 'co *C 1NVENT0R5- Gzw Ico Samue Lubkml By Morfon Mondschln George A. Wulfmg ATTO RNEY United States Patent Oli 3,229,257 Patented Jan. 11, 1966 ice 3,229,257 DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS Samuel Lubkn, Bayside, and Morton Mondschein, Lynbrook, N.Y., and George A. Wulfing, radell, NJ., assgnors to Curtiss-Wright Corporation, a corporation of Delaware Filed Oct. 17, 1960, Ser. No. 63,008 16 Claims. (Cl. 340-1725) This invention relates to data processing and more particularly to record medium routing apparatus which senses indicia on a record medium and routes the record medium to a location associated with the sensed indicia.

A typical record medium routing operation is the sorting of mail. The sorting of mail as presently practiced in a typical large city post office is a highly complex operation involving very large numbers of letters. These letters must be sorted into groups representing geographic locations and placed in suitable containers for delivery to their ultimate addressees.

At the present time the actual Work of sorting and preparing mail for delivery is performed manually and is subject to the physical and mental limitations of the individuals involved. As the memory and the physical reach of any one sorter is limited, the mail must be resorted through successive primary, secondary and supplementary stages. Most letters are sorted four to eleven successive times, depending on the size of the post office and the complexity ofthe routing.

For example, the Washington, D.C., post office performs two sorting operations that are related to outgoing and incoming mail. Outgoing Mail, defined as all mail delivered to the post oflice, comprises a flow of letters in the order of 1,300,000 pieces of first class mail during an average weekday. Of these, approximately forty-five percent are destined for local delivery. This mass of some 585,000 pieces, together with all mail received from outside the postal area, a total of approximately 1,600,000 pieces, is defined as Incoming Mail.

As a first step in automating the sorting operation, the address on a letter is converted to a representation which is capable of being sensed or read by a machine. Accordingly, all letters are imprinted with indicia by a manually-operated code imprinter upon receipt at a post office. The indicia may take many forms. For example, the back of the envelope may be imprinted with a dot code wherein each character of the street number, street name, street type, city section, city name and state are represented by coded combinations of dots. This dot coding step may be considered as the input operation of a data processing system.

The output operation of the system is mechanized by using conveyor belts having pockets which carry the letters over various bins which will receive the letters. However, there remains the very substantial problem of transcoding the information contained in a dot code on a letter to a routing signal which will insure that the letter whose dot code has been read is delivered to an appropriately assigned bin.

It is, accordingly, an object of the invention to provide apparatus for receiving coded combinations of indicia sensed from a record medium, such as a letter, and for routing the record medium to a location in accordance with the sensed indicia.

A more general object of the invention is to provide improved apparatus which, in response to signals representing a first set of data, produces signals representing a second set of data related to the first set of data.

Another object of the invention is to provide transcoding apparatus for use in combination with input apparatus which generates iirst coded combinations of signals in response to indicia on a record medium and with output apparatus which routes the record medium to one of a plurality of locations in response to a second coded combination of signals produced by the transcoding apparatus.

It is another object of the invention to provide improved apparatus for sorting record mediums such as post ofiice letters or bank checks.

A specic embodiment of this general aspect of the invention is transcoding apparatus for use between letter sensing apparatus which senses address indicia on each letter to produce address signals and letter routing apparatus which in response to routing signals produced by the transcoding apparatus drops each letter into a speciiic bin corresponding to the route of a mailman who will deliver the letter. In the transcoding apparatus, storage means, a rotating magnetic storage drum, stores groups of signals magnetically, with each group having an address area portion and a bin portion. Each address area portion is converted to corresponding signals which are sequentially compared by comparing means with the address signals from the letter sensing apparatus. When the address signals fall within the corresponding address area portion, the associated bin portion of the stored data is converted by converting means to routing signals which direct the letter routing apparatus to drop the letter into the proper bin.

Of course, this aspect of the invention is not limited to mail sorting but is equally applicable to any record medium routing or data processing operation.

Briefly, in accordance with this general aspect of the invention, transcoding apparatus is provided for use with apparatus for converting indicia on a record medium to a first coded combination of signals and for routing the record medium to one of a plurality of locations in response to a second coded combination of signals. The transcoding apparatus includes storage means for storing a plurality of groups of indicia. Each of the groups of stored indicia has first and second portions. Converting means is provided for converting the first portions to third coded combinations of signals. Comparing means compares the rst coded combinations of signals with the third coded combinations of signals. Other converting means converts the second portion of a group of the indicia to a second coded combination of signals when the comparing means indicates that a given relationship exists between the first coded combination of signals and the third coded combination of signals associated with the group.

Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description when read with the accompanying drawings wherein:

FIGURE l is a block diagram of the overall system in accordance with the invention;

FIGURE 2 shows symbolic representations of the components combined to form the blocks of FIGURE 1. In particularly, FIGURE 2A symbolically shows a gate, FIG- URE 2B is the symbolic representation of a buffer, FIG- URE 2C shows a flip flop in symbolic form, FIGURE 2D is the symbol of a pulse amplifier, FIGURE 2E shows symbolically a delay line, FIGURE 2F symbolically represents a toggle op; a write amplifier is shown symbolically in FIGURE 2G, while FIGURE 2H shows the details of the write amplifier of FIGURE 2G; a read amplifier is represented symbolically in FIGURE 2H, and FIGURE 2J shows the symbol for an actuator;

FIGURE 3 shows the Magnetic Drum MD of FIGURE 1 with the surface of the magnetic drum divided into zones;

FIGURE 4 shows the outgoing transition zone of the Magnetic Drum MD of FIGURE 3 in greater detail;

FIGURE 5 shows the incoming transition zone of the Magnetic Drum MD of FIGURE 3 in greater detail;

FIGURE 6 shows the details of a portion of the Timer W of FIGURE l;

FIGURE 7 shows the details of atypical Input Synchronizer A1 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 8 shows the Buffer Registers F1 to F4 of FIGURE 1 in detail;

FIGURE 9 is a detailed view of the Character Counter B of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 10 is a detailed representation of the Input Control K of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 11 shows the details of the Buffer Register and Sorting Machine Selector V of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 12 is a detailed representation of the Comparison Word Selector 1 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 13 shows in greater detail the Comparison Word Registers C1 and C2 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 14 are the details of the Comparator L of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 15 is a detailed View of the Channel Selector E of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 16 shows in more detail a typical Drum Reading Circuit M1 of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 17 shows the details of a typical Bin Location Solenoid Actuator G1; and

FIGURE 18 shows in detail the remainder of the Timer W of FIGURE 1.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Fig. No. Col. No.

Word Structure 3 Overall System Operation 1 7 Signal List 12 Components 2 15 Magnetic Drum l\'lD 3, 4, 5 18 Timor W 6, 18 21 Input Synehronizers A1 to A6 7 24 Buffer Registers F1 to F4 8 26 Character Counter B 9 27 Input Control K 10 3l Buffer Register and Sorting Machine Selector' V 11 33 Comparison lord Selector I 12 37 Comparison Yord Registers Cl and C2 13 38 The Comparator L 14 42 Channel Selector E 15 4G Drum Reading Circuits M 1G 40 Bin Location Solenoid Actuators Gl to G6 1.7 51

WORD STRUCTURE A letter word, that is, the address on an envelope, is represented by eighteen lines of coded combinations of dots that are printed in phosphorescent ink on the back of an envelope. Although phosphorescent ink is given as an example, it should be understood that other media such as magnetic ink are equally applicable. Each line comprises a coded combination of six dot positions. The presence or absence of a dot in each position represents a bit or binary digit. The presence of a dot indicates a binary one, and the absence of a dot indicates a binary Zero. Since six binary digits can be combined in sixtyfour different ways, it is readily apparent that each line of dots can easily represent all the conventional characters encountered in an address. In particular, it is seen that to represent all the letters of the alphabet plus the digits from zero to nine requires only thirty-six combinations. Although it does not affect the operation, it is convenient to utilize codes for alphabetic characters, which when interpreted as six-bit binary numbers, are in the same order as the alphabet. In other words,` alphabetic characters are arranged in groups or fields, and in cach group a unit alphabetic increase is represented by a unit bit increase. Whenever, in this description, a comparison between alphabetic quantities is mentioned, this means a comparison between the binary numbers represented by the codings for the alphabetic quantities. For deniteness, the coding in the following table has been chosen from the many permissible for this application. These codes are written in order of decreasing significance for bits from left to right. As will be later noted, decimal digits are handled at many points in the apparatus `as only four bits rather than six. In such cases, the four bits are obtained from the six listed in the table by deletion of the initial two zeros. The last three Codes are used on the drum for special purposes as described hereinafter in greater detail.

TABLE 1 Binary Character Code Numerical Equivalent 0110011 (100100 4 0110101 5 (1001111 t) (11111111 7 001000 t5 (101001 11 1101010 111 001011 11 (101100 1L! 010100 2t) 0101111 J1 (110110 22 010111 23 0111100 24 (1110111 2F 011010 2s 0111111 27 (111100 2S 100100 30 1011101 37 1(111110 38 100111 3l) 1111000 4!) 101001 41 10101() 4'.) 101011 43 101100 44 110101 53 1111110 54 110111 55 11101)!) 513 11111111 5T 1111110 5S 111011 59 Z 111100 |50 Equality Indicator. 001111 15 End of Incoming Comparators 011111 31 End of Outgoing Con1paratnrs 101111 47 The lines of dots are disposed on the envelope in the following order: The first six lines of dots represent the house number on a given street, referred to for brevity as street number, wherein the first line represents the most significant decimal digit of the street number, and the last line of dots represents the least significant demical digit of the street number. The next four lines of dots represent the street name, which may be of numeric typey as for example 52nd Street. Since only four characters are assigned to the street name, it will generally be abbreviated to t the four assigned characters. The next line of dots represents the street type, that is, whether it is a street, an avenue, a boulevard, etc. The next line of dots represents a section of the city, for example, north, northwest, etc. The next four lines of dots represent the city naine and the last two lines represent the state name. During an incoming pass, it is only necessary to read the 

1. FOR COMBINATION WITH APPARATUS HAVING MEANS FOR CONVERTING INDICIA ON A RECORD MEDIUM TO A FIRST CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS AND MEANS FOR ROUTING SAID RECORD MEDIUM TO ONE OF A PLURALITY OF LOCATIONS IN RESPONSE TO A SECOND CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS, APPARATUS COMPRISING A PLURALITY OF REGISTERS FOR STORING FIRST AND SECOND GROUPS OF INDICIA, MEANS FOR CONVERTING SAID FIRST GROUPS OF INDICIA TO THIRD CODED COMBINATIONS OF SIGNALS, MEANS FOR COMPARING SAID FIRST CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS WITH EACH OF SAID THIRD CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS MEANS FOR CONVERTING TO A SECOND CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS THE SECOND GROUP OF INDICIA STORED IN THE REGISTER WHOSE FIRST GROUP OF INDICIA WHEN CONVERTED TO A THIRD CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS HAS A GIVEN RELATIONSHIP WITH SAID FIRST CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS, AND MEANS FOR TRANSMITTING SAID SECOND CODED COMBINATION OF SIGNALS TO SAID ROUTING MEANS. 